From day one I could never get all three chain rings (thanks FF) as they FD fouled on the boom. Well, made a thin alu shoe and crimped and bonded to the inside edge of the FD cage.....it gives that extra "push" needed to get onto the granny ring !

The next problem is the FD shifter.....the original TT500 bar end shifters were just terrible, always just in the wrong place and would catch your thighs.....so I tried so SRAM X7 shifters worked brilliantly on the RD but not so good for the FD.... Occasionally it would over shift and derail the chain, it was just too hard to get it tuned just right...... Then I found Paul's thumbies..... Dug out the FD TT500 shifter and mounted it to the thumbies and now as its an old style friction shifter you can control the FD perfectly......

Now to the RD..... The original SRAM Rival was ok but never brilliant and seemed to go out of tune easily...... I had wanted to upgrade to a new cassette (PG1070 11-36) so fitted that onto my rear wheel (had to add a few extra links into the chain to cope with the bigger 1st gear), then needed a long cage RD, so picked up a SRAM X0 with long cage with red detailing (bling !)....on a recommendation from a MTBer at work also upgraded to Token ceramic jockey wheels (in red)..... Ain't Evans Cycles great ? $45 for the cassette and $160 for the X0 RD.....

Anyway, on the stand the RD set up was very easy, top and bottom limits set.....the indexing with the X7 shifter was spot on......

So yesterday it was finally sunny, so took the Musashi for a spin......60km later in 2 hours I got home.....the X0 is a brilliant piece of kit, really nice shifting, very crisp and precise.....the FD shifted nicely with the TT500 on the Paul's thumbies......the last niggle I have is whether to ditch the chain tube.....

William, what do you think ?

I'll take some photos to show off the blingy bits.....

I have to shorten the cables, what's the best thing to prevent the cable from fraying ?

Talk about hibernating in the man cave and coming out shining... I'm impressed but...Where's the pics?

I'm not sure what your chainrings size are but mine are a lowly 46/30 with a middle of the road 11-28 cassette. This has got me around every course and short little grades up to 18% but on the weekend I did a 300 out of Little River near Geelong and at the 245Km mark there was a steep gorge with a tight little bumpy bridge at the bottom and a 16% grade coming out for about 1.5 K's. My legs said bugger off and it was at this point I had to concede just a little lower gearing would be ok whilst i was walking up the hill. An 11-32 is on my shopping list now. One little item I praised was a rear mudguard. With more than 7 hours of rain or drizzle it was worth putting on.

But gear changing is always a problem with open bars where the hand part of the bar points backwards. I looked at the Thumbies but couldn't get my head around how fluent they would work without jutting out or being easily accessible to the thumb or finger so...(pics, pics, pics) Even the trigger shifters seemed to interfere into my leg space between the bars too (might be my Cancellara legs-dreaming).

I have a Velocity front wheel that weighs nothing. 16 Spokes paired lacing. I've hammered these and had one loose spoke in 6 months/7,000K's.Rear wheel is more bullet proof. Ultegra hub, Mavic open pro rim and 3 cross x 32 double butted Sappim spokes.Inner cable ends can be soldered to show workmanship but I just use cable end caps crimped on.

Oh! And get rid of the chain tube. Much quieter. Put some helicopter tape over the prone areas where the chain will hit. Also allow your rear derailleur outer cable to float a little where the rear cable support sits on the frame.

Your trigger shifter doesn't seem as intrusive as I first thought it would be.How is the Paul thumbies working out for you. Is it easy to operate and access with your thumb/finger?And...Do you have that little more leg room now?

Based on one 60km ride it's not at all intrusive, I have located it above the bars.....so good clearance to the legs.....the RD shifter sometimes feels it's in the way a wee bit but I always seem to find my left leg runs closer to the bars and not my right leg, maybe I do not sit exactly in the middle of the seat and off to the left side a bit ??

Shifting from the big ring to the middle and granny ring is a doddle with your thumb, because it's a friction shifter it's really easy to get it exactly where you want it.

Shifting from granny to middle to big ring is a thumb and finger affair but seems pretty straight forward.....I tend to shift the FD well ahead of when I actually need it, so not sure how it would work in a last minute shift......

Do you like my RD ? I am very impressed with that.....it works so much better than the Rival RD which was originally fitted......

I will remove the tube and see how it goes.....do you get much chain lube on the inside of your right leg ?

What is the chainring sizes Riggsbie?I'm not sure where the problem was initially other than guessing the lower part of the front derailleur was fouling the chain. I've always set my front derailleur approx 1-2 mm away from the big ring and looking at yours it seems farther away in the pics.Very nice piece of work though to bring it up to a working standard. It looks like its soldered.

I think it is all about the lateral position on the chainrings......with a spacer effectively moving the chainrings a few mm's outboard would have worked.....basically the FD cage was hitting the boom clamp (black alu part) when trying to shift onto the granny ring.

By moving the FD up a bit it gave more sideways movement but just not enough still...... I used a piece of 1.5mm thick alu to cut and crimped onto the inside of the FD cage and that's just enough to allow it to shift onto the granny ring......

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